Albert Steck talks to Hans-Joachim Voth

Isn’t it time to stop seeing work as a burden and start recognising its capacity to improve our lives and those of others? Journalist Albert Steck quizzes academic Hans-Joachim Voth about how meaningful labour can improve our wellbeing and why humans aren’t just designed for leisure.

We all wish for a sense of fulfilment in our lives – a topic that you’ve studied. So what’s the secret?
First, let me explain how we arrived at our conclusions. In the 1930s the US government compiled 1,500 biographies of ordinary people and stored them in an archive. With two colleagues, I analysed these fascinating life retrospectives. Our central question was: what mattered most to people?

And what was the answer?
The most important source of fulfilment was work and not primarily for financial security. It was about doing something meaningful, mastering tasks and receiving appreciation. Taking pride in one’s achievements, contributing to a greater whole and camaraderie were key.

What other factors were crucial?
Close family relationships and the individual’s role in their community, including contributions to their neighbourhood, city or associations that earned them social recognition.

Today work often has a bad reputation and is portrayed as a burden. But your study shows that no factor is more pivotal for happiness.
That’s right. The concept of a “work-life balance” assumes that happiness and your job are in opposition. It suggests that if I spend one more minute at work, that’s one less minute of “real life”. But the biographies that we analysed show that this dichotomy doesn’t really exist. It’s only by doing something meaningful that we find fulfilment.

That might be true for a doctor but does it also apply to a cashier, for example, or a factory worker?
Absolutely. That’s a key aspect of these stories. Across all social classes, the findings were almost identical. Regardless of gender, ethnicity or age, the factors for life satisfaction remained the same. I was especially impressed by the example of a librarian who took great pride in helping others by giving them access to certain books.

Satisfaction is subjective. Doesn’t that weaken the significance of your findings?
That is a valid point. Happiness is very moment-dependent. I feel good after a meal or napping but I can’t build a life plan around these things – no one should eat or sleep all day. These biographies are valuable because they offer a retrospective view. We can see which decisions and priorities were worthwhile and which weren’t.

How did you analyse the 1,500 biographies?
We used artificial-intelligence tools but ensured that they interpreted the texts in a similar way to people. Even human researchers reach slightly different conclusions when reading the same texts. AI is useful as long as its deviations are no greater than those between two people. We tested more than 15,000 samples to ensure that the AI provided reliable results.

What’s the main conclusion of your research? Does our society need to rediscover its love of work?
Today we vilify work and glorify leisure but that’s nonsensical. Your career is far more than just a means of earning money to pay for fun in your free time. Consider what happens when people lose their jobs: unemployment insurance might cushion their loss of income but their sense of life satisfaction drops significantly. It’s because work contributes greatly to their personal fulfilment.

Even when the work is hard?
Work rarely brings the same kind of pleasure as a theme park and some people in the biographies that we analysed didn’t enjoy their jobs – for example, a butcher in an industrial slaughterhouse. But humans aren’t built for constant entertainment. I agree with French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, who said that we should think of Sisyphus as a happy man. Even difficult work allows us to use and improve our abilities, build relationships and take pride in our achievements.

Switzerland’s Social Democratic Party wants to limit the working week to 38 hours over four and a half days. Do you see this as progress?
No, because it conveys the idea that work is hostile. And economically it would be harmful. Furthermore, if we reduce work hours too much, people won’t be able to fully develop their skills. To become an expert in something, you need time – roughly the well-known 10,000 hours.

A common argument for reducing working hours is to tackle rising stress.
That’s a valid concern. Not everyone handles stress in the same way. Still, society is going in the wrong direction by constantly complaining about it. Tackling professional challenges is a positive experience. It teaches us to achieve ambitious goals. An athlete at the start of a 100-metre race feels a rush of adrenaline.

The trend towards a leisure society is ill-timed. As a result of demographic changes, we lack workers and shorter hours will only make the problem worse.
Yes, and then there’s the harmful “age guillotine” of retirement. It’s pointless to automatically exclude capable older people from the workforce. The idea that the retirement of a 65-year-old creates a job for a younger person is false. This isn’t a zero-sum game. Every working person creates more work for others. Plus, tax revenues increase.

Yet many people oppose raising the retirement age. In France, for example, protests erupted when reforms were attempted in 2023.
Politics has created false expectations. People think, “I paid into the system so I’m entitled to retire at 62.” When the retirement age increases, people feel as though something is being taken from them. Work then feels like a punishment. But in truth, it’s a privilege to be needed and contribute to society.

With longer life expectancies and delayed entry into the workforce, is a shorter working life a waste of valuable human capital?
Exactly. We strive to treat resources sustainably but waste vast amounts of human capital in the labour market. Tax systems contribute to this by failing to reward work sufficiently. Highly educated people often work less to save on taxes.

What can be done to make work more attractive again?
Two things, which are especially relevant to Switzerland: first, focus on the apprenticeship system, which introduces young people to the working world early. People who study until 30 often struggle to transition into working life. They’ve never been inside a company and see the work environment as hostile.

And the second thing?
We must value all kinds of work. If there is a deep divide between “educated elites” and less formally trained workers, it destroys social cohesion. In Switzerland, even unskilled workers can earn a decent income without having to rely on government aid. A heavy dependence on the state, as in many European countries, undermines people’s motivation for individual responsibility.